when driving down a hill if I keep my feet on brakes it goes down to the end in auto-stop but when I take my feet off the brakes at the bottom, suddenly engine jumps to 3K rpm and when I hit the gas it jumps to 5K rpm, after that when I stop again, and hit the gas again, it doesn't speed up at all and rpm sticks to <1K... after shutting down and waiting for engine to cool off for a while it goes back to normal. but it's so annoying I get stuck in slowly moving traffic for at least 30 minutes a day down hill, and it easily goes on autostop frequently...

anyone had that problem?

 

Do you have to take your brakes off at the bottom? I've been in stop and go traffic once before where I would get into autostop at the top of an incline, and then traffic slowly sped up and I was able to get up to almost 25 mph with autostop still on. At this point traffic thickened and I ended back up at 0 mph, once again. It was funny because I was using 0 gas while everyone else was just burning away...

So what you're saying is that you will speed up going up the incline and traffic will thin enough that you need gas? Sounds like a rare occurence to me, usually bad traffic will get good only for a little bit, in which case you should just glide with autostop still engaged. If everyone else wants to gas past you let them. It is actually better for traffic flow if everyone goes one consistent speed than the famous accordian motion. There would be few traffic jams if every car had a computer on board driving your car that could talk to every other car on all the roads in the country. Optimum paths could be calculated and optimum speeds could be calculated. It would be like water through a pipe. The water all goes the same speed.

If traffic flow actaully goes back to normal speed for you after reaching the bottom of these hills I don't know what to tell you.

 

Have you tried shifting it from Drive (D) to Second (S) when going downhill?
If I am reading my manual correctly, Autostop only happens when in Drive or Neutral. Shifting into "S" should cause the car to use lower gear ratios. My manual says to use Second when going down a steep hill, or in stop-and-go traffic.

 

yes, S prevents autostop. I use it at stop signs

 

thanks I think I'll use S more often then... but does that RPM's going crazy and not working after the stop mean there's a problem with my car (particularly with cvt maybe) ?

 

I'm not sure. I would give the S a try. Just a guess, but maybe it would cause the rpms to even out a bit, by preventing the autostop (where the rpm goes to zero, I think).
I've never had the same experience as you. The closest I came to it was on a downgrade recently on the highway, and the IMA was charging big time; I could feel the regenerative braking, and it was a little jerky. I think if I put my foot on the gas a bit it would prevent that. I don't know if shifting into S would be wise at highway speeds though. Not sure what the rpms should be when going that fast.

 

I use the S all the time at stop signs and lights that I'm coming up on and know it is going to change within a few seconds but I know I'm going to get under 7 mph. Just be sure once your foot is off the brake and you start moving to put the car back in D! Sometimes I get a phone call when coming up on a stop sign and habitually put the car in S so it won't AS, but my mind switched to seeing who's calling and pressing the button on my bluetooth headset, all the while I've started moving and get up to 25 or 30 while still in S with the RPM's up about 3,500 until I realize I forgot to shift back to D

 

Just to hear it again, it was decided that if your car is not in autostop for at least 6 seconds it isn't worth it, right? That is why everyone uses S to prevent autostop?

 

hhybrid, the rev numbers don't sound right to me -- usually when mine kicks back on from "rolling" autostop (like I released the brake before the car was completely stopped) it chugs like a golf cart, spurts up to 1500 or so, and then matches to the car speed. 5000? Under no conditions but full throttle would I ever want to see that kind of spin. Are you hitting the gas that hard? It's possible the computer is looking at throttle input and seeing a request for high acceleration.

So, if you're just feathering the throttle back on (which you should be, even if you then need to accelerate briskly), and the engine is revving that high on its own, I'd get it looked at.

cheers --
doug

 

wait, so you don't want the car to use autostop?

And secondly, how do you get up to 25 in autostop? everytime i lift my foot off the brake just a little bit the engine comes back on...